There is a legend, a character who has been a household word for 70 years, a fictional young man alternately loved or reviled by all who know him. Nationwide, worldwide, it’s hard to find someone who could not name him on first glance—Batman’s kid sidekick Robin.
The kid sidekick serves as a conversation foil, comic relief, and something to help bring the kids in. It's actually a quite useful device. Spider-Man originally broke the rules to great effect by being the kid in his own comic! But thought balloons helped bring the reader in—almost like the reader was actually Spider-Man’s sidekick!
In general, it always helps to have a Sancho Panza, a Watson, a Robin, a Bucky, a Jimmy Olsen, etc. for the main character to talk to, and often to add comic relief. I loved the Curt Swan era Superman, but I do remember a heavy reliance on thought balloons back then, since he usually didn't have someone flying along next to him to talk to. Lately, they've been making a lot of use of Commissioner Gordon in Batman comics (not to mention the last three movies!). Has he become the sidekick? Without Robin around, somebody had to; nature abhors a vacuum.
I understand people hating Robin because they think he diminishes Batman somehow, but I think the opposite is true. There's something wonderful about Batman—whose parents were murdered in front of his eyes and he had to grow up without them—taking on the parent role for someone else who experienced the same thing he did. I think that's why writers keep coming back to bringing in Robin. (Though I can live without any of the post-Dick Grayson Robins. It starts to get creepy.) He completes Batman. He's hope. He's hope for someone whose life was seemingly ruined as a child. If not for Robin, writers would be tempted to take Batman's story to its logical conclusion—he would die horribly, sad and alone, probably crazy looking for a vengeance he can never truly complete. Robin saves Batman.
Literally! In the 1960’s, when Adam West and Burt Ward donned the skintight outfits and came into everyone’s living room twice a week, Batman was revived. The comic book was actually on the verge of cancellation before then, and now BATMAN was a nationwide sensation. And would the TV show have been successful without Robin? Probably not. Likely not.
Even Christopher Nolan, who gave us the most serious and real world Batman of all, and who swore up and down that he would never bring in Robin to his movies—he ended up having Batman pass the mantle on to someone named Robin. Nolan didn't have to do that. There are a hundred other Batman stories he could have told. He didn't have to jump to the end of Batman's career, but that was the strongest story he wanted to tell. The passing of the mantle story. And even he knew that everyone would have been disappointed if the mantle went to anyone other than a Robin.
That seems to be an indispensable part of the myth that is developing—one day Bruce Wayne will pass the Batman identity on to another...only then does Batman truly become a legend.
In the comics and at least the main animated show, Dick Grayson has grown into his 20’s and left the Robin persona behind. He has become his own man named Nightwing, and I’m more than okay with that. I like that he has grown and found his own path. But one day…
Other characters consider him the best person they know, the best hero and the best man. In one of the better comics, Batman talks to Nightwing and asks him (and I’m paraphrasing) why he’s not as messed up as Batman himself is. Dick Grayson tells him “You had no one, Bruce, but I had you.” An honest moment, a moving moment, a moment frozen in time that tells Batman that, no matter how his war on crime ultimately ends, he has already won.
Robin makes Batman human. Robin saves Batman. And that’s the case for Robin.
I have been revisiting some comics series from the 70’s of late and I am struck by how different they are from most modern comics. Surprisingly, the 25-cent super-hero newsstand comics of the 70’s seem deeper and more weighty than the comics of today, though the Comics Code has long since been done away with and anything goes now. Unfortunately, that means more gore, profanity, and sex instead of being deeper and more intelligent.
This is certainly not meant to be a “Comics today suck!” and “Everything old is better!” treatise. I have monthly subscriptions to about 20 Marvel and DC comics and I buy at least another ten comics on the stands and I’ll buy any graphic novel or collected edition that grabs me. And this is also not a “Super-Heroes are dumb!” rant either! I LOVE super-heroes! I’m open to sci fi and westerns and biographical and noir and more, but super-heroes are always my favorites. But I have to say—super-hero comics are boring right now.
Everything is just an adventure story. This is not the way it was when I was growing up. Sometimes when I say I love super-hero comics, people look at me like “Aw…poor, dumb guy.” But the super-hero comics I grew up on in the 70’s were smart! And varied! And they tackled deep issues. The super-hero was the center of the story that deep issues swirled around. Social issues of the day and eternal social issues as well, deep metaphysical ponderings of the meaning of life and time and space and other dimensions (I didn’t have to do drugs—some of these writers and artists did them for me!), and even the nature of God—all these issues were tackled in the cheap newsprint super-hero comics of the 70’s, and I think I’m smarter and deeper and wiser for reading them. And that’s what I think of when I say I love super-hero comics.
Marvel especially is doing a really good job these days of producing super-hero comics. A lot of the writers are topnotch, the artwork is often incredible, and the production values are better than anybody could have hoped for. It’s like really good chocolate cake—very enjoyable as you’re eating it, but then you wonder where the nutrition was.
In comparison, back in the 70’s, Marvel had a number of really good writers—EXCEPTIONAL writers—who were able to produce exciting, interesting action stories AND insert that deepness so lacking today. Steve Gerber is the best, no two ways about it. What Neal Adams was to comic book art, Steve Gerber was to comic book writing. But he wasn’t alone. Don McGregor was right up there with him. And Doug Moench, Steve Englehart, and of course Denny O’Neil over at DC. Writer/artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko arguably did their best work in this period as well, and Howard Chaykin and Jim Starlin were just getting started—but I will get back to them some other time. Here, let’s concentrate on the writers.
STEVE GERBER—I could write a whole article on how great, unique, and innovative Steve Gerber was…and I think I will! But for here at least, let’s quickly mention how his HOWARD THE DUCK was possibly the best-written comic of the entire 70’s—or the 20th century—or ever! But I only caught up with this later. When I was a kid, it was his DEFENDERS that blew me away. (With great artwork by Sal Buscema!) The Bozo Cult, the Elf with a Gun, the Headmen, Jack Norriss trying to save Nighthawk’s brain from rolling off a table(!), Valkyrie saving a baby from a New York City rat the size of a cat, and so many other things that still stick with me and made this possibly my all-time favorite comic. Lately, I’ve been finding back issues of his MAN-THING and SON OF SATAN that I never read at the time they were first printed, and every issue is unique. I’ve only got one issue of FEAR starring MORBIUS THE LIVING VAMPIRE written by Gerber and it’s obvious that I’ve been dropped in the middle of some longer story, but even the one chapter I have is just SO well written that it just sort of shines. OMEGA THE UNKNOWN could have and should have been the next big hit after all of Stan Lee’s 60’s creations, but it wasn’t handled right. It’s a great joy to find these gems that I never read before—almost like new comics! I wish the poor man were still alive—selfishly, because I just want him to keep writing. And I wish he hadn’t butted heads so much with his bosses back then—there could be hundreds more comics out there waiting for me to find them.
DON MCGREGOR—His graphic novels SABRE and DETECTIVES INC. (illustrated by the incredible Paul Gulacy and Marshall Rogers, respectively) changed the way people looked at comic books. Well, almost. At least they broadened the minds of comic book people about how great the graphic novel format could be—and then they went back to business as usual. In the regular comics though, I was always aware of his WAR OF THE WORLDS/KILLRAVEN feature (in AMAZING ADVENTURES) with the transcendent early art of P. Craig Russell. This is perhaps the BEST example of how to marry exciting comic book adventure with profound studies of the human condition. Go read any issue these two masters did and see what the medium is capable of. In a mere 17 or 18 pages, these two say more than anything the best modern creators take six or twelve issues to TRY to say! I’ve only just recently begun to find a few issues of McGregor’s JUNGLE ACTION issues featuring THE BLACK PANTHER and the little I’ve seen there so far tells me I’m in for a treat. Though he’s a white guy, McGregor became well-known for writing black heroes really well—Sabre, Black Panther, Ted Denning (half of DETECTIVES INC.), and even some Luke Cage. The friendship between Killraven and M’Shulla is exceptionally well-written, and AMAZING ADVENTURES #31 contains comics’ first interracial kiss between the black M’Shulla and white Carmilla Frost. He’s done a few other features through the years that I missed, and I think I need to track those down.
DOUG MOENCH—Moench finally got the high profile attention he deserved when he moved over to BATMAN in the 80’s, but it’s his earlier work on lower profile features at Marvel where he really shined. An almost unbroken 100+ issue run on MASTER OF KUNG FU was responsible for probably my first realization that—Comics are great! If anybody anywhere ever says anything derogatory about comics, my mind immediately goes to MASTER OF KUNG FU and I feel sorry for that person. Paired with the incredible (and realistic) Paul Gulacy for about two dozen issues and then the surprisingly effective open and attractive art of Mike Zeck for a few more dozen issues, Moench gave us epics. These stories read like really good James Bond movies starring Bruce Lee…helped along in no small way by Gulacy’s predilection for cinematic storytelling, including splash pages that looked like movie posters and characters sometimes resembling famous actors. But it was another feature that forever secured Moench’s place in my heart and mind—MOON KNIGHT, illustrated by the “just Adams enough” Bill Sienkiewicz. First, as a full-color back-up in the HULK magazine and then as the first direct-only comic in comic shops, MOON KNIGHT was incredible. It may sound like a disservice but it’s actually a great compliment: Imagine Batman at Marvel Comics and you have MOON KNIGHT—the best “Batman” since O’Neil and Adams’.
Sadly, most of the work mentioned above is not being reprinted! I think there are (or at least were) legal problems with HOWARD THE DUCK (first with Disney, then with Gerber himself), MASTER OF KUNG FU (oops, turns out Marvel didn’t have to rights to use Fu Manchu in almost every single issue!), and possibly even KILLRAVEN (isn’t “War of the Worlds” public domain?). The three best comics can’t be reissued! So, I have been patiently (re)collecting them at comic conventions. (I’m only missing one or two issues of each now.)
Something else the three writers above had in common was their practice of inserting large amounts of text only in the middle of this medium that had always put artists first. No, none of these writers skimped on the actual WRITING of their comics! No three pages of fights with no dialogue or anything like that. These guys worked hard and took the job seriously.
STEVE ENGLEHART—This writer also gets honorable mention, even though he didn’t seem to struggle as much as the above underappreciated writing geniuses. He always worked on high profile comics like CAPTAIN AMERICA, AVENGERS, and DEFENDERS (and was responsible for the first big summer crossover with these last two—but I’ll forgive him for starting that trend!), and his work does get reprinted. He killed the Ancient One, co-created MASTER OF KUNG FU, and brought back PATSY WALKER and turned her into Hellcat. He co-created the Ultraverse including NIGHT MAN and wrote three episodes of the subsequent TV show. His work seems mainstream, but he is often remembered for his more “subversive” storylines. He’s the guy that had DR. STRANGE meet God! He’s the guy that had (apparently) Nixon commit suicide in front of CAPTAIN AMERICA! This storyline sent the quintessential patriotic hero on a journey of self-doubt and questioning of the government he had so faithfully served. That’s heavy stuff for Code-approved 70’s 25-cent comics sold to kids! And that’s where I came in and that’s when Captain America became my all-time favorite super-hero. And then he moved over to DC for a short time where he casually gave us the best-written JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA stories ever and his few BATMAN stories in DETECTIVE COMICS with artist Marshall Rogers still inspire and influence comic book creators and movie makers decades later, with much of Tim Burton’s AND Christopher Nolan’s Batman vs. the Joker movies seeming to take a lot from the Englehart and Rogers stories.
A lot of writers from the 70’s just seem gone now. Englehart and a few others moved on to book writing, while others moved to television. Some died, and some just sort of disappeared. As I said, poor Steve Gerber’s health failed him just as a new generation of editors was starting to hire him for important stuff again. Don McGregor and Doug Moench both continued working through the 80’s and 90’s (Moench much more than McGregor), but I have not seen either of their names on a book in a few years.
But I’d like to.
